Flint institution Makuch's Red Rooster restaurant closes after more than 50 years

Ken Makuch and his wife Mickey are closing the family-owned Makuch's Red Rooster restaurant in Flint after more than 50 years of business. Makuch's parents, Art and Olga Makuch, opened the business in the late 1950s.Shaun Byron | MLive

The online guest book for the restaurant has messages from patrons giving thanks for great service or sharing memories of a first date.

The decision to close had been weighing on Makuch's mind for the last six months, however. His original plans to keep the business going until December were scrapped after realizing the money spent to keep the doors open would never be made up.

"Last Tuesday, I closed the business and I looked at the cash register receipts and I knew we only had four more days of business," he said. "I went home to my wife and started crying and said, 'I can't do it anymore. We're closing Saturday night.'"

The Red Rooster opened in the late 1950s, and Makuch said he started working in the family business with his brother Art as kids.

"We had wonderful customers that would bring parties in," he said, remembering a company from Owosso that had a plant located in Japan and would use the Red Rooster for company parties.

"I would make a gourmet dinner from soup to nuts with silver goblets and candle, six and seven course dinners," Makuch said. "It was fun in those days, but you can't do that if you don't have the customers."

They bought the business from their parents in 1979 and Art retired about a year and a half ago, Makuch said.

"I've been running it ever since and then the city economy has just been going to hell and there was no way I could keep the doors open, not enough coming in and too much going out, taxes, fees, licenses," he said. "Every time you turn around, they are going up, but I can't raise my prices. I'm already high enough to give the kind of quality meals that I've been serving all these years."

A sign hangs on the door of Makuch's Red Rooster restaurant in Flint. The Red Rooster is closing its doors after more than 50 years of business.Shaun Byron | MLive

The loss of AC Spark Plug/Delphi Flint East complex and Buick City eliminated the customer base for the east side restaurant, Makuch said.

"There was no way for me to maintain the quality and the volume that I always had, and if I can't maintain the quality, I'd rather not be here," he said.

Makuch's wife, Mickey said the support for the Red Rooster dried up, with many community organizations and companies taking their dinner parties to other communities.

"You can't run a restaurant on that small amount of people that do support one institution," she said.

U.S. Rep. Dale Kildee remembers going to the Red Rooster when it first opened, saying the food was good and the staff was friendly.

"It was the place in Flint," the congressman said.

Businessmen used it as a place to take vendors, and many of the powerbrokers had their own tables, Kildee said.

"It would be rare if you walked in there and didn't see someone who didn't have some kind of influence in Flint," he said, calling it one of the top restaurants in the area.